


Dollface

by Maiera



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:54:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6955462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiera/pseuds/Maiera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marionette is the Herald, but not yet Marionette. A one-shot of a Dovahkiin, before Helgen, being taken to Thedas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dollface

Andranye. My name is Andranye Palitea. I've lived in Valenwood for the majority of my life. I like to think I never angered the Divines, at least on purpose. And I always followed the Pact. So someone please tell me.

"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now." Why there's a woman interrogating me?

"I-I didn't realize crossing the border was a crime punishable by death..." I had been knocked unconscious sometime last night while I was on my way to Skyrim. I had meant to find work, get an actual chance at seeing the world. Apparently I chose the wrong country to do so.

"The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you." The woman points an accusatory finger at my chest.

"Um. I feel like I'm missing something here. I never heard of any Conclave? I don't see how I could have had anything to do with it."

"You're lying!" She moves to strike me when another woman- when did she get there?- held her arm back.

"We need her Cassandra."

"Why would you-" before I could finish asking, a sharp pain ran through my entire left side. As I looked for the source, I found a vivid green glow encompassing my hand, fading as it crawls up my arm. "Oh. Not me, but whatever this is?" I look up to the second woman for confirmation. 

They just ignore me though. "Go to the forward camp, Leliana. We will meet you there after we test the Mark."

The second one, Leliana, heads out of what seems to be a dungeon, now that I look around. I honestly didn't even notice the shackles until the violent one- Cassandra, I think?- had taken them off. She quickly replaces them with a sturdy rope, however.

"So, care to tell me what happened? Because I am relatively confused and dazed." My voice lowers to a murmur. May as well make light of the situation. Gallows humor and all that. "Not the best way to wake up, in prison. Then again, all the greatest heroes start out that way, next thing you know I'll have a chat with the Emperor or some such..."

She leads me towards a flight of stairs, ignoring my cleverness. We were under a temple? "It... will be easier to show you." How very helpful.

But oh, how right she was. Nothing said could have prepared me for the literal hole in reality. "We call it the Breach. It grows larger with each passing hour, as does the mark on your hand. And it is killing you."

"Wait- you think I did that?! By the Divines, it's another fucking Oblivion Crisis! I don't know your grasp on history, but no mortal has ever opened up the Gates. And even then, there was always a- a structure, an actual gate! This is a hole! In the middle of the sky!"

She looks at me like I'm crazy. "Holes in the Veil happen often without any structures. It is simply a much larger and more severe case than we have ever dealt with."

"Veil? What-" Again, a sharp pain interrupts me mid-sentence. "Alright, universe. Message received. We should probably hurry."

"Meaning...?"

"Well, we should probably fix the Breach as soon as possible. I would be happy to help. Not as if I have much choice, but still. Be useful where you can, yeah?"

She no longer looked quite as murderous, so I figured she approved of that. Makes this a lot easier if my jailor doesn't hate me.

We walked along the trail in silence. It seems she either didn't notice or didn't care that I was confused. Well apparently the world was ending, if panicked soldiers are to be trusted for a sound assessment of the situation.

Eventually, we reached a large bridge and halfway across, it was struck by a boulder covered in the same sickly green glow as my hand and the Breach. The two of us went tumbling down towards the ice, and with fairly good reflexes, I cast Oakflesh before crashing onto the ice.

Coming out of the impact site of the boulder, was a twisted, hunched over figure. It's like a dremora went wrong. I'd never seen this kind of Daedra before, but this wasn't the time for questioning. "Stay behind me!" Cassandra ran towards the demon, charging at it and giving a guttural war cry. Gods, humans are so needlessly loud...

I try to get a grasp of the terrain, and find a fairly decent bow and a thankfully full quiver. Just as I make my way over to it, another Daedra comes out of the ground, crawling straight for me. I focus in on the enemy before me and fire straight into its core, then its head. Black liquid begins to dribble out of the wounds and I hope it will bleed out, so I cast a fireball on the ice under it, debilitating it if it doesn't die. That leaves me able to assist my escort.

Which proves to be unnecessary. When I look over, she already has a sword through the first demon. Which is now aimed at me. "Drop your weapon. Now!"

Not in any real position to argue, I do as she says. "Yes ma'am!" The bow falls out of my hand as if it were a hot coal.

She levels me with a glare. "You are a mage." Um. What?

"Sorry- why is that relevant to the world ending? Besides, it's not a very hard spell, anyone can do it..."

"No, only a mage can use magic. And the fact you hid this fact is rather damning."

"What? No, everyone can cast a simple healing and flame spell... This is-" My brows furrow, things begin to add up. No Oblivion Crisis, strange terminology, no inherent magic, a Conclave? "... not Nirn."

"What are you murmuring, apostate?" Her sword is still pointed at me.

"Of course! I'm not in Nirn anymore! This isn't Skyrim, it probably isn't even Tamriel, is it? Well! That clears that up! I suppose while I'm here I may as well do all I can to help anyhow. After all, I doubt the Divines would take me to another plane without reason."

"The Divine had no contact with you before the Conclave. Leliana or I would have known if it were so."

"No, the nine Divines- well. Eight depending on who you ask... The Aedra? No matter. I believe we have a Sky Hole to stop. And that word... what was it- apostate? Why would I be running? I follow the Pact as well as any other Bosmer. And even then, it's usually only used for religious organizations, the Pact is more of a code agreed upon by a society than an organization with leadership and such."

"It is not a religious term. It is a mage who is not part of the Circle of Magi."

"Oh! Like the Mages' Guild or the College of Winterhold! You make it sound like that's a mandatory thing, though. Be part of this Circle or you become a criminal."

"Because that is exactly so. Mages are dangerous. They are prone to corruption and possession. So they go to Circles, not allowed to leave for their safety and that of the regular people."

I give her a condescending look. "Bigoted views you have there. You say I'm the dangerous one? Sorry, but you're the one waving that sword in my face for self defense." I begin to walk towards the Breach again. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll just go be productive in stopping this crisis, you're welcome to come along if you stop being an asshole."

Silence ensued for a while. There were a handful of other skirmishes where, since I no longer had the bow I found, I stuck to magic to get rid of them. That may or may not also be out of spite to my bigoted jailor here. I have quite the upper body strength, if I found their weak point, I might be able to even fight them unarmed entirely.

"The others are just ahead. You can hear the fighting."

"Got it." I run to the ruins of what seemed to be a courtyard? That or the cieling was blown so far away as to be nowhere near us.

The demons were taken care of relatively quickly, and before I could process that fact, I felt a large hand grab my wrist and shove it towards the Not-Gate to Not-Oblivion. What was it they called it, the Rifts? The Rift connected to my hand, and soon closed. I had felt his magic prodding the thing on my arm through the whole process.

I narrowed my eyes at him and lowered my voice slightly. "What did you do?"

He seems jovial, and if the accusation even caught on, he did not catch it. "I did nothing the credit is yours."

I level him with a sardonic tone and raised eyebrow. "Right... and I'm craving salad."

Another voice from behind me matches my sarcasm. "I suppose you'd have us take a break from demon invasions to frolic in the woods?"

Wow. He's so tiny. "Of course! I have a quota to meet after all. Seven hours of naked frolicking a day, or no stew for dinner." I get a closer look at the man and his gear. "I've never seen such a powerful looking crossbow! It has to be custom made, right?"

"That she is." He looks affectionately over his shoulder. "Bianca's one of a kind. And..." He turns to my warden. "She'll be excellent company in the valley."

"No." That voice did not broker any kind of arguement, but... he is the only one actually being nice.

"If you don't keep him along, I will. Mother always told me I had a habit of picking up strays. Plus, that crossbow is really badass. Think of all the demons it could kill."

"The prisoner has a point, Seeker. You need me. I'm Varric, by the way. Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally, unwelcome tagalong."

"Oh! Names, yes. I'm Andranye, though my friend and family just call me Andra. Cousin to the Hero of Kvatch, and currently a jobless wanderer."

"My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live."

I think Varric noticed the confusion on my face because he followed that up with, "He means 'I kept that thing from killing you while you slept.'"

"Oh! So you must know about this, then?" I lift my left hand. "You all have survived this long, I would assume End-of-the-World grade magic wouldn't exactly be common knowledge. Though, as far as my own knowledge goes of this place, this world could be about a week old and I would be none the wiser."

The two men give each other odd looks and my jailor elaborates. "She believes she comes from another world or something similar... It was mumbles and mutterings, though. Just ignore it, we have a job to do." She hops over a bit of wood that blocked the path and the three of us follow suit.

I huffed a bit. "I am from another plane. Nirn. Tamriel. Most recently... Valenwood. Grahtwood. Haven. Third building north of the Western Docks. I was trying to go to Skyrim. I couldn't give you an exact location where in Skyrim though... Hadn't thought that far ahead. I figured that I would just be wandering around and enjoying the scenery until I got a steady job or something, but no! I got ambushed in my sleep, then next thing I know, poof! In jail. With some mark or whatever that is the key to saving this world! Lucky me, right? But, I mean-" More demons. Beating them is a lot easier when our group is twice the size. "Shit, I have to be here for some reason, yeah? The Gods put me here for something or another..." And another group. These guys are becoming more frequent. "You all make this Mark to be some huge thing, so this is probably it." As I said that, the Mark buzzed, making my whole arm shake. Another Rift. Swift work at this point.

"Why do you not call them the Creators?" The elven mage distracted me from the people arguing about my death as we approached the forward camp.

"What? They aren't called the Creators by anyone."

His brows furrowed with mine, the two of us blocking out the yelling man. "What are their names?"

"That's easy. Auri-El, Y'ffre, Arkay, Z'en, Xarxes, Baan Dar, Mara, Stendarr, Lorkhan, Herma-Mora, Jone and Jode, and Ius."

"That is... quite a few. Who do you worship mainly then? You remembered Auri-El and Y'ffre first, them?"

The others are bickering about what route to take, direct path with soldiers or mountain path with potentially dead scouts.

"Hmm... Beyond them being the main two, I actually prefer following Ius. I stick to the Green Pact well and good for Y'ffre, but I always loved the tales of Ius. The Ox and the Evil Farmer was one of my favorite stories growing up."

"How do you think we should proceed?"

I blink a bit, kind of stunned. "You want my opinion? Truly?" I shift the weight between feet back and forth as I think aloud. Thirty years of tactical training, time to shine. "The mountain path. You mentioned troops stationed up ahead? Send for them back here. If there's a rift, then they would just keep fighting more and more waves of demons with no hope. Same could be said if that is why the scouts have not returned, but at least if we go after the scouts... even if they die, we still save the ones we can still communicate with."

There were even more demons, and surprise surprise, the scouts were being held back by a rift.

My jailor actually gave me the credit for thinking up the strategy. Perhaps she isn't as rude and prejudiced as I thought? The silence around us isn't quite as tense, at any rate.

We finally made it to the Breach, and the thing is really high up... Past the clouds, or at least on the same level as them. "I know I'm a mage, but even I can't levitate. How are we getting me that far up?"

"The rift below it. It was the first, and therefore it is the key. Close it completely and it should close the Breach as well."

"Ah." We continue our way down, Leliana's men at the ready for whatever may spew out of the damned thing. And we start hearing voices.

"Keep the sacrifice still."

"Someone, help me!" Cassandra identified the second voice as Divine Justinia.

"Xarxes' backside, what in Oblivion is that?!" My voice, but...

As we reach the ground, a scene that I don't remember plays out. The same voices, but... more. There's visuals this time.

And after my outburst, a new line from the one responsible. "We have an intruder. Slay the elf." The woman's arm jerks, and the vision dissipates. 

"You were there! The Divine is she... Is what we are seeing true?"

"I-I don't know! It feels like I saw that before, but just a tiny itch in the back of my head..."

"It was imprinted on the Fade. But we have a job to do, we have wasted enough time here." The elf is very serious.

"That means demons. At the ready!"

Nobody told me that demons could get as big as buildings. It took about as long as the past three groups combined to beat the thing!

But we finally get to close this thing, and I get to go home. My arm tethers to the rift, and I snap it away, closing the first rift. I get knocked back by the blast, and everything fades to black.


End file.
